


fire red hair and ocean green eyes

by technicolouredmonochrome



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Lindsay and Meg and Ray all make appearances later but it's nothing major, M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 14:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2273424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technicolouredmonochrome/pseuds/technicolouredmonochrome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He points out something about a prince and servant boy, and then about a scientist and a writer, about two soldiers in World War II, an artist who painted portraits of someone (his lover) that looks a hell lot like Michael, two slaves making the treacherous journey across the dry desert, royalty, commoners, implicit, explicit; all small little anecdotes of a life Michael doesn’t remember, but has Gavin bouncing excitedly anyway. There must be about a hundred of them, little hints at possibilities and bygone histories, <i>and there must be a hundred more</i> Gavin tells him. <i>Hundreds and thousands of little stories that slipped past notice and were buried forever with the bodies.</i> Despite himself, Michael is intrigued. “So you’re suggesting we go grave hunting?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	fire red hair and ocean green eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: There is mention of major character death, and there is blood somewhere down the line.

Gavin and Michael first meet as a lord and his servant boy.

Michael has a shock of red hair that glints fire in the sun, and Gavin is the servant boy that’s always getting yelled at for dropping the breakfast or tripping over his own feet.

Once, Gavin breaks a very old statue that had been sitting in the corner of Michael’s room since _forever_ (or so the royal nanny says), and he looks horrified when it falls, fragile marble connecting with the cold, unforgiving concrete ground and shattering into a million fragments. But Michael only laughs. “I never liked that ugly thing anyway,” he tells Gavin dismissively, but Gavin is near tears with fear so they smuggle the broken pieces out of the room in the cover of the night and bury them in the royal garden, under the plot of petunias that Michael’s mother is so fond of.

Michael kisses Gavin in the cellar. They had both broken in against the King’s wishes and were giggling madly as the people outside yelled for “The prince and his servant boy!” Gavin’s face is flushed red from the thrill of the chase and the bit of wine they’d tasted, and Michael cannot think of anything else except _Gavin_ , _Gavin_ , _Gavin_.

Gavin kisses Michael in the cellar. Michael is a prince, and Gavin half expects Michael to taste like gold and rich chocolate. Except when they kiss, Michael tastes like bread and cheese and the wine in his mouth, and Gavin smiles against Michael’s lips as he thinks of Michael as a mouse, scurrying through the darkness and slipping into storage houses at night. “You’d make a cute mouse,” Gavin tells Michael when they break apart, and giggles again at how stupid it sounds.

Michael smiles. He doesn’t have a clue about what Gavin’s talking about, but all the same, he can’t imagine being anywhere else.

Michael never marries, because he doesn’t want to, because Gavin is all he needs, and he doesn’t need anyone else ( _definitely_ not the stuffy ladies in huge dresses that smear lipstick on his cheek when they dance). When a nice maid shyly gives Gavin a flower, Michael feels a pang of something dark and ugly curl in his chest, and refuses to speak to Gavin the rest of the day. Gavin just laughs against his lips and asks if he’s jealous, to which Michael splutters and starts and stops again, because Gavin’s hand is on his breeches and he can’t think a coherent thought even if he tried.

Gavin never marries, because a notice comes into the kingdom one evening that they are going to war, and he fits Michael out in his battle armor, and watches as he carries the flag of their people away from the castle, away from their home, away from _Gavin_ , the promise of “I’ll be home soon,” not enough to quell the aching fear and desperation and worry that settles into the pit of Gavin’s stomach. He cleans and cooks and washes in the day, and watches the window by night, hoping and praying that his prince, _his_ prince born of fire and sunlight, will come home.

Michael dies with a sword through his heart and his hand clutched around a crucifix, the one Gavin had given him before he’d left.

Gavin dies in his bed, curled around Michael’s pillow, face buried in the fur as he tries to breathe.

 

* * *

Michael and Gavin meet, the second time, in a crowded street corner. 

Gavin is decked out in green, which looks ridiculous against the grey-monochrome of London, the velvet material of his expensive suit turning dark under the onslaught of the falling rain. Michael bumps into him as he rushes by, scattering the droplets caught on his black umbrella all over Gavin’s coat. Someone snarls something angry, but Michael is too busy apologising and feeling abashed to notice, so he rushes out a quick, “My apologies sir, I’ll definitely get the cleaning done for you–” Gavin laughs and tells him to pay him no mind, that he should hurry on if he has something urgent to attend to, so Michael offers his final apologies and hurries on his way.

Michael thinks this is the last he’ll see of the stranger in green.

Gavin thinks this is the last he’ll see of the stranger with the black umbrella.

When Michael walks into the ballroom two weeks later, the stranger in green is standing by the door, and offers him kind smiles and his eyes are really, _truly_ , green, and he finds himself accepting the dance that the stranger in green asks of him.

Gavin rests a hand on Michael’s waist and doesn’t want to let go, but the dance ends and the spell breaks and they both step back and bow to each other. “I had a good time,” Gavin tells Michael, and grins when Michael returns the sentiments. And with his heart beating hard against his chest, he kisses Michael, soft, chaste, quick, in the middle of the crowded ballroom.

Michael thinks, as Gavin pulls away, that he’s kissed Gavin before. He must have, because he _knows_ those lips, and he can suddenly picture Gavin completely naked, lying underneath him with his hair fanned out in a halo, sweat slicking the place where their bodies meet. But then he thinks he can’t have, for how could he have forgotten someone as beautiful as Gavin?

Gavin feels the tingling of Michael on his lips as he pulls away, tastes bread and cheese and some of the wine he’d been drinking on his tongue, and feels a sense of _rightness_ and _home_. He offers to take Michael home, and smiles when Michael says _yes_.

Michael moves into Gavin’s place a year later, but there isn’t much to bring over because he practically lives there already, and all that’s left is a small suitcase of clothes that go into the corner of Gavin’s closet that Gavin had somehow emptied out for him (god knows he has enough rubbish as it is). They christen the new sofa that evening, and then they go back to the bedroom and everything is slow and steady and perfect, and Michael pulls Gavin in closer and tangles his fingers in his hair.

Gavin yells at Michael one evening over something stupid. Yells that he can’t remember anything, yells that he doesn’t seem to care anymore. Michael’s fingers tremble under the table, and Gavin yells and yells and yells, but then the fire burns out and the steam stops blowing and they end up entangled on the couch as Gavin murmurs that _he’s sorry_ , _he’s so, so sorry_ , and Michael’s hands don’t stop shaking.

Michael dies next to Gavin this time, still shaking, old and frail, as Gavin quietly cradles him to his chest and hums a forgotten lullaby under his breath.

Gavin still dies alone, eyes turned up to heaven as he prays and waits and feels the breath leave him with a smile on his face.

 

* * *

Gavin and Michael meet on a train.

Michael is clutching his stack of papers tightly to his chest, a pair of wire-framed glasses slipping down his nose as he tries desperately not to fall over. The train jerks to a halt and he loses his balance, papers scattering over the dirty train floor underfoot, and he cusses under his breath as the people around him start streaming out, trampling all over his notes. When he stands, there is someone holding out some stray papers he’d missed with a smile. Michael takes one look at the similar wire-framed glasses and the pen tucked in the pocket of his shirt and thinks _writer_. 

Gavin is a writer that travels wherever his heart tells him to go, a free spirit that can’t be tied down by _anything_ , not commitments, not loyalty, not love. But Michael might be more than enough, because Michael talks about electricity like it’s the stars in the night sky, and explains circuitry like it holds the answers to the universe. So Gavin decides that he’ll stay here, stay and write about Michael and his glasses and the curl of his fingers over his stack of paper.

Michael meets Gavin one, two, five, seven days of the week. He tells him about the experiment he’d just finished, or the examination he’d just taken. Gavin listens to him with a patient smile on his face, and Michael apologizes, once, because “I must be boring you.” Gavin shakes his head vehemently and tells him to go on, tells him that it’s _fascinating_ , so Michael goes on and doesn’t want to stop.

Gavin stays one, two, five, seven days in the first week he’s there. Then he stays another week, and then another month. He’s hardly written anything, but he isn’t too scared, because Michael’s given him more than enough for a proper story, more than enough to fill three volumes of literature with the tilt of his head and the sparkle in his eyes. Except when Gavin finally sits down to write, he finds that he doesn’t want to. Because – and he’s _selfish selfish selfish_ ­– he wants to keep Michael to himself, because this little part of Michael is his and he _wants_ _it for himself_.

Michael kisses Gavin under a night sky littered with stars, and even though the moon is nowhere in sight, his vision fills with bright light and the only thing he feels is the spark of electricity that shoots down his spine.

Gavin kisses Michael under a night sky that he’d spend the rest of his days writing sonnets to, even though the moon is hiding behind the veil of clouds, there is something (molten gold he thinks) that’s flowing in his bones and lighting him on fire. 

(Michael asks Gavin if they’ve met before and Gavin says no, they haven’t.)

(Gavin asks Michael if they’ve kissed before and Michael says no, they haven’t.)

Michael spends his days buried to his neck in wires, and leaving the house at the oddest timings to fix something for someone living down the street.

Gavin spends his days buried to his neck in paper and ink, typing and retyping the introduction to a story he can’t quite get a handle on yet.

Michael loves Gavin, except he isn’t really good with words, so he tells him in the way he touches him, the way he kisses him, the way his fingers slip into Gavin’s body as he caresses the skin on the inside of his thigh, swallowing each gasp and sigh Gavin gives out as he pushes into him _slowly_ , _slowly_ , _slowly_.

Gavin loves Michael, except he forgets to say it sometimes, so he leaves little anecdotes from his books for Michael wherever he can, serenades Michael with poems and sonnets, and trace words into Michael’s skin ( _I held a jewel in my fingers and went to sleep; the day was warm, and winds were prosy, I said “Twill keep”_ ), fingers running along his sides as Michael arches up into him and presses himself _closer_ , _closer_ , _closer._  

Michael holds Gavin as he wheezes into his neck, fingers gripping his shirt tightly as he tries to breathe.

Gavin is unmoving and cold, but Michael presses himself against him and _exhales_.

 

* * *

Michael and Gavin meet in a battlefield, bullets flying overhead and the sound of bombs exploding everywhere.

Gavin feels the rumble of the ground beneath his feet and tries to focus on counting. _One_ , _two_ , _three_ , _four_ –

Michael vaults over the low-lying wall and crashes into someone just as a bomb goes off too near for comfort. _Crash_ and he’s sprawled on the floor, a whistle and then a _boom_ that leaves his ears ringing and fills his mouth with grit.

Gavin is on his back, and the soldier that had crashed into him pulls him up and pushes him backwards. “They made the call to retreat – _fuck_ – pull back now!” he yells urgently over the bullets hitting flesh and the cries of men distantly yelling, “ _Fall back! Fall back!_ ” He stumbles after the soldier, feeling the pack on his back shift rhythmically with his own footsteps. There are other men following hot on his heels, calling out instructions, yelling as they near the encampment, and Gavin feels his heart in his throat and he pushes forward and _runs_.

Michael doesn’t turn to see if the stranger is following him. He can taste copper in his mouth, and he feels the ooze of blood on a gash on the left side of his face, the sting of the cut fading as he pushes on and presses forward and feels the adrenaline narrow everything down to something distinct and fierce and painfully hot. Each breath he takes sounds too loud, but the roaring in his ears drowns out the noises of the men around him, and he’s so close, _so close_ , and he’s almost there–

Gavin feels a bullet catch on his leg, travel through his calf and burst out the other side. He thinks he screams, he can’t be sure, but he falls and the spell is broken, everything suddenly too loud and his head too heavy and _he doesn’t want to die_ , but _god_ he’s so so tired. 

Michael feels the rocking of the explosion ( _too near, something’s wrong_ ) before he looks down and there’s a piece of shrapnel lodged in his thigh and suddenly his leg won’t work anymore. “Fuck!” he thinks someone screams, but he’s on his side on the floor and his vision is swimming and everything is blacking out around the edges. _Fuck_ he doesn’t want to die. _Fuck_ he’s screamed at death in the face more times than he can count, but _fuck_ everything hurts so much and he’s going, going, gone–

Gavin wakes to white walls and the heavy smell of antiseptic in the air. He wants to move but everything hurts, he’s thirsty but he can’t call for a drink because his throat is dry and nothing on him is working right.

Michael wakes to a throbbing pain on his left. He tries to reach down and press against the ache, but his arms are made of lead and nothing seems to be doing anything his brain tells it to do.

Gavin next wakes to murmured swearing, grits of pain, loud huffs of breath, and he turns to see a fellow soldier with an amputated leg biting so hard on his bottom lip as he tries to manoeuvre himself off the bed that it’s drawing blood. “Hey,” he says without thinking, because brown eyes are suddenly narrowed at him and _wow_ Gavin had really _not_ thought this through. “You should wait for the nurse,” which comes out sounding more like a question than an order. 

“Fuck no,” Michael says, because who is this fucker that’s trying to tell him what to do. His whole body is on fire, _everything_ hurts, and all Michael can think is that he’s going home, but his whole platoon is already blown to pieces and _how the fuck_ can they send him home? The asshole in the next bed sits himself up with a wince, frowning down at his legs, before his eyes widen and his mouth forms a small ‘oh’ of realisation (not that Michael’s looking, because Michael _honest to god_ does _not_ give a fuck).

Gavin finds himself stuck next to grumpy in rehabilitation (“ _Michael_ ,” the nurses say once, and Gavin frowns before willing his leg – _prosthetic­_ – to move). Some nights it gets hard, the dreams won’t leave his mind, the blood and the gunfire and the screams of the soldiers around him, but when he wakes from a particularly bad dream, breathing hard and sweat clouding his vision, he thinks he hears Michael wheezing out just as fiercely in the next bed.

Michael and Gavin are discharged on the same day, and Michael, _fuck_ , he doesn’t want to go home. So when Gavin asks if he wants to hang out at his place, Michael doesn’t hesitate before saying _yes_ , _yes_ he would like that very fucking much. _One week_ , he tells himself, just so he can get his shit together before going home. Except Gavin’s place suddenly becomes _home_ and Michael doesn’t want to leave. One week drags into two, drags into a month, into a year, and Michael doesn’t want to go.

Gavin and Michael have sex once, _just once_ , and as they both lie in bed that night, legs tangled together, plastic pressing against skin and too much heat and adrenaline under their skins, they think _just once_ and resolutely don’t mention it ever again.

Michael doesn’t marry, because his girl back home found someone better. (He doesn’t feel sad, not the way he’d thought he’d feel, but he finds himself buying milk and fixing lights in exchange for meat and he thinks, _yeah_ , he could live like this.)

Gavin doesn’t marry, because he’d never had anyone waiting for him to begin with. (He doesn’t feel too bad about it, because Michael is there every morning with a scowl on his face because _Gavin’s really fucking lazy_ but there’s coffee so Gavin thinks he doesn’t hate him too much.)

Michael doesn’t say, “I love you,” but he _does_ say, “I can’t imagine being anywhere else,” instead.

Gavin doesn’t say, “I love you,” but he _does_ say, “Me neither,” instead.

 

* * *

Gavin and Michael meet in a neighbourhood.

Michael is five and he wants to be an astronaut one day. Gavin is four and he just really wants to play catch with Michael.

Gavin and Michael become best friends in the time it takes for them to find out each other’s names, and become inseparable once summer rolls around. If they are not playing catch, they are chasing butterflies or angering the neighbours’ dogs. They start fence-vaulting when they turn nine, and Gavin breaks his arm in the middle of one particularly exhilarating and treacherous competition, but Michael comes by the hospital with ice cream and comic books and sweets everyday, so Gavin doesn’t mind too much.

Michael studies hard because he wants to be an astronaut. Gavin studies hard because Michael does (and really, he doesn’t know anything else).

Gavin goes to college and becomes “Cool and stuff,” (Michael’s words) because he’s in the football team, but troops over to Michael’s house every evening to hang out when his teammates are throwing parties and wrecking havoc.

Michael goes to college and stays a complete nerd that no one likes, who gets beat up in the room behind the lockers as he screams and swears at his bullies. They just sneer and call him names and kick him in until something breaks in Michael’s chest. He spends the week in the hospital, and Gavin skips practice to sit with him and read comics while sharing ice cream and sweets. It’s nice, a reminder of simpler times, and Michael tries to quell the unraveling in his chest during a particularly vivid fight scene in a panel that gets Gavin all animated and excited.

Gavin kisses Michael behind the bleachers, heart thundering in his chest, hand clenched tightly in his shirt. It’s messy, it’s uncoordinated, and Gavin gets more of Michael’s chin in his mouth than his actual lips, but it’s _perfect_.

Michael graduates with perfect grades, Gavin not so much but _eh, I’ll work it out_. Michael signs up with NASA and wants to be an astronaut so badly it hurts, and every time he’s turned down he goes home to Gavin who’s working odd jobs now that they’re roommates (but definitely something more) and curls up in his arms and wills the world away.

Gavin is there the day Michael becomes an astronaut. Gavin is there the day Michael tells him that he’s being deployed. Gavin is there the day the spaceship fires up and leaves the earth, the loud roar of rockets as his heart leaps to his throat and he watches the space-shuttle shoot up up up into the sky.

Michael’s last thought is that Gavin has to watch this, and he grasps for something that isn’t around his neck (he can’t help the feeling that there should be).

Gavin watches as the bits of spaceship fall from the sky, alight with fire, like stars falling down to earth, and feels his heart shatter and scatter into the wind.

 

* * *

Michael and Gavin meet in a car accident.

Gavin isn’t sure what happens, everything happening too quickly. One moment he’s holding his daughter’s hand and crossing the street, the next moment there is the sound of screeching tires. He pushes his daughter out of the way before there’s the sickening crunch of bones and loud thump, and then he’s on the hard concrete of the road, vision swimming and body broken beyond repair.

Michael is at the scene of the accident in an instant, kneeling by the guy who’s bleeding out all over the road, cradling a little girl who keeps crying out “Daddy,” in a pathetic voice, asking him why there’s so much red, begging him to wake up and _take them home_. Michael feels a swooping sensation in his stomach, because this guy isn’t going to make it, but he calls an ambulance anyway.

Gavin feels himself fading, and fast, but he holds his little girl’s hand and tries to say _it’s alright_ but the words won’t come. So he looks to the man instead, red hair wild in the sun, and can’t help the pathetic chuckle that comes with the thought, _if this is the last thing I see before I die, it isn’t too bad_. He grips the man’s hand and tells him, _take care of her_ , and he must’ve said it because the man’s eyes go wide, and he distantly hears a “Who, me?” so he grips his wrist harder and says _take care of her_.

Michael watches the paramedics wheel the man away, and holds on to the girl that’s kicking and screaming and crying. He doesn’t know what to do, looks down at her and her tear-streaked face and feels honest to god terrified because _what the hell_ is he supposed to do?

Gavin is buried on a rainy day, and Michael doesn’t know why but his heart is thudding too loud and the little girl is clutching at his hand like he’s her last anchor to this earth. (If he lets go, he’s afraid she’s going to float away.)

Michael takes care of her, because that’s what the guy asked him to do. He finds out her name is Rose, and that she’s British, and that Gavin was the “bestest Dad a little girl could ever have,” but she looks like she’s seconds away from bawling so he doesn’t pry. He takes her out, buys her gifts, brings her to his workplace occasionally (when the sitter isn’t free), but she calls him Michael and he doesn’t force her to call him anything else.

Gavin is an enigma in all of her stories, always larger than life, perfect, and Michael gets the sense that she _misses_ him, that she’s terrified now and tries to grow up because she thinks growing up will make the pain go away.

Michael thinks it’s inevitable when she finally loses it in school. The teachers call him and he hears screaming and crying in the background, someone throwing a chair and the plastic colliding with the concrete of the wall with a loud clang. He gets the rest of the day off and drives down immediately, slipping into the classroom the teachers are cordoning off with the warning of “She’s not herself,” following him into the small space. The room is a mess, paper strewn all over the floor, the tables and chairs in disarray, and she’s still screaming and crying and hurling books at the board and shoving furniture in fits of rage. Her voice is hoarse from all the crying, and Michael feels his heart break, but he stays where he is by the doorway, sliding onto the floor quietly and waiting her out. She calms down, eventually, and Michael watches carefully to make sure she isn’t still seconds away from breaking before moving over to sit with her. There is a _look_ in her eyes, a little scared, but a defiant spark in them that’s almost challenging (if not a little exhausted) that seems to be asking, _you going to get rid of me now?_ So instead, Michael hands her a bottle of water that he’d had in his bag and asks, “Feel better?” She looks surprised, but she nods, and then buries her face in his shirt and clings and cries.

 

Gavin’s death anniversary is a few days away, and Michael asks for Rose to not have to be in school, takes her to pick out flowers for Gavin’s grave, takes the week off and watches horrible chick flicks with her and cooks her favorite pasta for dinner. She tells him one day that she’s sorry, although Michael isn’t sure for what, so he drops a kiss onto the top of her head and tells her she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. She tears up a little, but doesn’t say anything in return, so he continues to stroke the soft curls of her hair as she leans against him.

Michael takes her to the grave one early Monday morning, and sits nearby, close enough to get to her if she needs him, but not close enough to hear if she whispers. She doesn’t, talks long and loud and rambles about anything and everything. “I talk to you every night,” she says, fingers running along the stem of a flower, “But this feels _closer_ , somehow,” and Michael settles in as she talks about school and life and _how she’s going to be a nurse_ because she doesn’t want anyone to have to lose her dad the way she did. “Michael’s great,” she suddenly says, and Michael feels a little guilty that he can hear what she’s saying, but doesn’t move away. “He’s– honestly dad, you were so lonely when Sarah left, and you said we didn’t need her anyway – well, you certainly made it feel like we _didn’t_ need her, but _you_ needed someone, I could tell ­– and I think,” she looks up at him, and pauses, and Michael feels his heart thundering in his ears, but he doesn’t look away, “If you had met Michael earlier, you’d have loved him, the way I do. I would have liked the both of you to be my dads.” Michael will deny tearing up at those words to the very end of his days, but the way she smiles at him when she gets up from her spot and moves over to hug him makes it _worth it_ , and he’s just thankful that Gavin – whoever he may be, whatever he might’ve have done – in bringing up this beautiful little girl and giving her to him, has given him the greatest gift in his life.

(Gavin makes Michael ache in a way he cannot understand, but it’s no matter, because he’s got Rose in his arms and it’s _more than enough_.)

 

* * *

 

Michael and Gavin meet in a museum.

Gavin is a historian who hides in his office most days, and can only be persuaded to come out if there’s coffee, or history in the making, or both. He stumbles across a little something one afternoon, nothing important, except he’s busy poring through old scrolls when he reads about a prince and his servant boy. The prince has hair that glints fire in the sun, and the servant boy has eyes the green of an ocean. Gavin dully notes that he looks an awful lot like the servant boy, but writes it off as purely coincidental, and Gavin forgets about it as soon as he’s reading through the sordid details of a battle that tore the kingdom apart. Except a week later he reads about a scientist with the same bright red hair and a writer with the same green eyes, which he writes off as another coincidence (even if they look a little too much like the portraits of the prince and his servant boy, the writer – again – bearing a little too much resemblance to Gavin). Then there is a hint in one of the books he’s poring through about an astronaut with fire-red hair (whose name is _Michael_ of all things) that has him hunting through the exhibits for clues, which is when _Michael_ walks in.

Michael enters with all the grace Gavin would imagine of a prince of old, except he nearly upends one of the boxes and almost scatters the stack of notes he so painfully put together. So he’s not _that_ graceful, but captivating all the same. Gavin stares and stares and stares, and it is distracting as hell and _what was he looking for again?_ –

Gavin is a breath of fresh air on a humid summer’s afternoon. Michael steps into the museum as a reprieve from the hot sun, and ends up wandering around the exhibits, until he spots someone muttering distractedly to himself as he’s ducked under a cheap model of a space rocket. He doesn’t know why he stops, but he does; stands there and stares and stares and stares. There’s confusion, and recognition, and something stirring in his gut. “Um,” he starts, because the guy is staring back at him, and Michael is getting a little nervous and he’s not sure what to do with the swooping sensation in his stomach. “Uh hi?”

Michael feels the nerves build and build until the person under the statue rams his head against the exhibit and swears loudly, making his eyebrows go up in surprise and the corner of his mouth twitch up in amusement. “Michael?” and his heart stops because–

Gavin hurriedly berates himself, cursing under his breath, because _what the hell_ is he thinking? “I’m so sorry,” he quickly amends, and waves a dismissive hand. “I thought you were someone else.”

Michael laughs, and feels his heart start to beat normally again because _what the fuck?_ “Well that’s a hell of a coincidence,” he says as casually as he can, but the guy’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “So since you know my name, what’s yours?” 

“Gavin.”

Michael comes by every afternoon after that, and then the only thing that drags Gavin out of his office is coffee, or history in the making, or Michael, or any combination of the two, or preferably all three. (His favourite is still Michael and coffee though, because that means Michael’s going to be staying awhile, and that’s always good.)

Gavin shows him stories, records, ancient texts on their third date. “I thought three was the magic number,” he tells Gavin jokingly, and Gavin shoots him a rakish smile, but continues to fix the records together. He points out something about a prince and servant boy, and then about a scientist and a writer, about two soldiers in World War II, an artist who painted portraits of someone (his lover) that looks a hell lot like Michael, two slaves making the treacherous journey across the dry desert, royalty, commoners, implicit, explicit; all small little anecdotes of a life Michael doesn’t remember, but has Gavin bouncing excitedly anyway. There must be about a hundred of them, little hints at possibilities and bygone histories, and _there must be a hundred more_ Gavin tells him. _Hundreds and thousands of little stories that slipped past notice and were buried forever with the bodies._ Despite himself, Michael is intrigued. “So you’re suggesting we go grave hunting?”

Michael catches on quick, making something warm swell in Gavin’s chest as he declares a grave-hunt. Michael is looking at him funny, but when Gavin kisses him he feels the smile against his lips and couldn’t be more thankful for Michael. They begin their hunt for their past lives with sex (of course), before they pack their things into the trunk of Michael’s _Chevy_ and starting their cross=country journey. They find a gravestone with Gavin’s name on it, a girl by the name of _Rose_ next to it. They scour apartments for old artefacts, read up as much as they can on reincarnation.

Gavin lies next to Michael and breathes into his hair. The bed sheet beneath them is scratchy and Gavin thinks he hears a mouse scuttling somewhere in the corner of his room, but Michael’s holding him close and he really doesn’t care.

Michael holds Gavin closer and whispers, “Do you think we always found each other?” He can’t imagine what they would have done if they hadn’t; if in this life, Michael had gone on his own way with that gaping hole in his gut, missing _something_ or _someone_ like an amputated limb.

Gavin hums thoughtfully. “At least we found each other in this one,” he says, with some kind of finality. 

Michael doesn’t promise he’d find Gavin in their next life. 

Gavin doesn’t ask him to promise either.

 

* * *

 

Gavin and Michael meet in a coffee shop. 

Michael is pretty sure that if the shop gets any busier, he’s going to fuck something up. Spill someone’s coffee. Throw a fucking huge tantrum. Destroy the coffee maker if it _doesn’t stop spitting fucking coffee on his new pair of converse_. The queues just keep getting longer, the noise is reaching almost ear-splitting levels, and there’s an asshole trying to flirt with him at the counter.

Gavin doesn’t know why he does it, tells others it’s almost instinctual, the way he flirts with anything that moves or breathes. Except he kind of wants the barista taking his order to blush, see how red he can get, before he tells Meg that he’s finally found someone _else_ whose blush clashes as badly with his hair as hers does. The barista isn’t buying it though, ignores his cheesy pick up lines and his attempts (pathetic) at flattery, and Gavin is a little (just a little) put off. “Are you fucking done or what,” the barista deadpans, and Gavin winces a little inwardly because _ouch_. With a last failed attempt ( _see you later beautiful_ ) he shuffles along with the crowd to get his cup of coffee from the lady with a nice smile that giggles at his pick up lines.

Michael forgets about the idiot until he comes in the day after, and then the day after that.

Gavin, determined not to let the barista get the better of him, comes in the day after, and then the day after that.

Michael hates himself for it (except Lindsay keeps reminding him, poking him a little in the side and shooting him positively ridiculous winks every time the bell of the door rings and his head shoots up to have a look at the customer coming in) but he starts to look forward to the idiot that comes in with a different pick up line every day. He kind of wants to keep track, so he knows when the asshole has run out of lines and is starting to recycle them, but as Ray kindly pointed out, that would be weird, and vaguely creepy, so he doesn’t.

Gavin finds that he genuinely enjoys the coffee at the place, and plus there’s always pretty good company whenever he goes by, the glowering redhead has even started smiling and occasionally, tries to stifle his laughter when Gavin says something particularly cheesy. He drags Meg to the place one day (“Trust me, _best coffee ever_.”) and he thinks he sees redhead’s expression fall, which does really weird things to his gut. He lets Meg order first, watching as she chats up some pretty blonde behind the counter, and then whispers to the barista as he hands him his change. “Don’t worry, pretty sure I’m only into dudes,” and _ah_ , there’s that blush.

Michael finally gets the guts to ask the idiot out, and when he finds out idiot has a name ( _Gavin_ ), he shrugs and says he’d rather call him _Idiot_. “It has a nicer ring to it,” he says with a half-shrug, which makes Gavin splutter indignantly. 

Gavin learns the barista’s name ( _Michael_ ) and takes to saying it as awfully as possible. It pisses Michael off and makes him giggle happily, so Gavin counts it a win for all.

Michael finds out that Gavin will live on caffeine alone if he can manage it, takes too many _Redbulls_ a day (“I have papers to finish Michael. _Papers_.”) and _definitely_ doesn’t get enough sleep. (He can’t really help on the third one, because most nights, he’s the one keeping Gavin up.)

Gavin finds out that Michael is actually really awful at making coffee (burned it, and god knows how he did that), has the foulest mouth that could ever belong to a person, and is scarily good at games. Although he has nothing on his friend ( _best friend_ , and Gavin is decidedly _not jealous_ about that), Ray, when the three of them have game nights (or more like, Gavin screams and runs around firing aimlessly at anything and everything, while Michael and Ray scream at him and complete the mission that is supposed to be accomplished by all three of them).

Michael marries Gavin on a Saturday afternoon when he is twenty-seven and Gavin twenty-six; Michael in a white tux and Gavin a black one, and he can’t stop looking at the sweep of Gavin’s hair, or the way there is a bruise peeking out from the collar of Gavin’s shirt, nestled right in the place Michael likes to bury his face in 

Gavin is pretty sure he messes up his vows, but no matter, because Michael’s kissing him, and Gavin’s kissing back and everything is _perfect_.

(Michael curls himself around Gavin, pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades. “For better or for worse.”

Gavin shifts and entwines his fingers with Michael’s. “For better or for worse.”)

 

* * *

Michael and Gavin meet somewhere in-between.

Gavin knows that where they are, it’s neither _here_ nor _there_ ; it’s an empty void that is a little unnerving, the silence pressing down on all sides. His voice doesn’t echo, sounds a little muted to his ears, but the redhead a short distance away looks up and frowns at him, a little curious but mostly pissed off.

Michael thinks that as introductions go, “Where the fuck are we?” isn’t the best, but suddenly the place lights up and the memories come flooding back in, everything is black, white, and in Technicolor, memories that are _his_ and yet _not_ , _Gavin_ , _Gavin_ , _Gavin_.

Gavin feels the pain behind his eyelids, but he can’t stop seeing them, memories, emotions, feelings, that make his legs tremble and his knees weak, makes him collapse onto the floor as he tries to breathe, each image with bright red hair and brown eyes smiling, terrified, pissed off, absolutely smitten–

Michael finds himself on his back, and he wants to reach out, _Gavin_ , but the darkness is swallowing him again and he can’t-fucking-move.

Gavin finds himself on his back, hands curling around nothing as he feels the phantom lips of Michael pressing against his.

 

* * *

 

Gavin and Michael meet in an office. 

Michael has just finished his video for the day when skinny and gangly trips into the room. He doesn’t care, doesn’t give a shit, until he looks at skinny and gangly and wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. “Hey, you mind editing a video for me?”

Gavin is nervous, all first day jitters, but redhead by the corner is shooting him a smirk and looks amused (and in a nice way too) so he shrugs off his jacket and moves over to where he’s seated. “Where do I start?” 

“Michael,” he says, and sticks out his hand, grinning when skinny and gangly grips it back just as firmly.

“Gavin,” he says, and returns the grin. “I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

**Author's Note:**

> Epilogue: They don't break the cycle, but they do find each other in every other life after. To answer Gavin's question, _yes_ , they'd found each other in every life before. But they don't always fall in love. Sometimes Gavin is a girl, sometimes Michael is a girl, sometimes they're both girls. In one lifetime, Michael marries Lindsay and Gavin marries Meg but they're both neighbors so that's okay. In another lifetime, they adopt children. In another, they are born as brothers. But they meet again and again and again, and they don't promise each other that they'll find the other in the next life in the rare lives that they find out the truth, but they do anyway.


End file.
